A user may use a “living room” device, such as a game console, set-top box, streaming media device, smartphone, tablet, or other computing device, to access a streaming media program service to have media programs streamed to the device. However, before accessing the service, the user must download an application for the streaming media program service to the device. In some cases, a distribution site regulates which applications a device can install. For example, an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) that sold the device may maintain an OEM distribution site that aggregates available applications that a device can install. In this case, a user of the device must go to the distribution site to download the streaming media program application from the streaming media program service. In another example, the distribution site may pre-install approved applications on the device. In either case, for the streaming media program service to have an application pre-installed on the device or be available for download on the distribution site, the streaming media service has to have the application approved by the distribution site. This usually involves an approval process in which the streaming media program service submits the application to the owner of the distribution site for approval.
After releasing the application, the streaming media program service may update the application very frequently to add features, fix bugs, etc. The update experience may be complicated and may require a user to perform many manual steps. For example, a user may launch the streaming media program service application to watch a media program. However, instead of having the streaming media program service application launched, the user encounters a modal dialog instructing the user to manually download and reinstall the streaming media program service application from a different menu. The user then has to then exit the streaming media program service application and launch another menu or application. For example, the other menu may be page for the distribution site where the user can update applications. Then, the user has to search for the streaming media program service application in the menu, select the streaming media program service application, and start the update. The update process then downloads and reinstalls the application. Once finished, the user can go back to the original streaming media program service application and re-launch the application.